


i heard your castle sighing

by bam_cassiopeia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Bluebeard rewrite, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:09:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7417261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bam_cassiopeia/pseuds/bam_cassiopeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There is a tale told in the furthest reaches of the empire - once upon a time, the story starts, a long time ago, when the empire was young, and far, far away, there lived an orphan girl named Rey, a bright star alone in the neverending sandy wastes of the Jakku Marches, and there was a dark shadow they still call Bluebeard, the Lord of Ren – the monster who enforced the will of the emperor, leaving a trail of tragedies in bloody footsteps…<i></i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the seed

 

Rey grows up at the edge of the world, alone in sandy wastes, under the harsh sun of the Jakku Marches. She remembers a promise, a loved voice swearing to come back to her. A memory of family to sustain her, her only company for years. That and her dreams of water, and the tales of the wide galaxy painted in broad, colourful strokes by too-rare travellers at the Niima outpost. There she brings weapons scavenged in still-smoking battlefields and old things preserved by centuries buried under sand, in ruins eaten by time, uncovered and recovered by the winds.

 

 

Lord Unkar Plutt’s law is supreme in the Marches. The land is far from the bright core of the empire, too near the front of the years-long war, pockets of violence erupting and raging like the wildfires she’s heard about, lightning strikes brought by the rebels Lord Plutt shelters in his halls. The rebels who gave Jakku its independence from the Empire, who keep its inhabitants free. All that means to Rey is that the desolate land is Plutt’s, and each and every one of the things she salvages his as well. When she comes to Niima, back bent under the weight of bags full, it’s not to sell the items but to be compensated for the time spent recovering the Lord’s property. His, and the rebellion’s. The scraps of food and water she receives in exchange for her labour ( _because the times are hard, girl, and all must participate in the war effort_ ) never feel like a just payment, but what can she do? She can’t leave Jakku, not if she wants her family to find her. She can’t protest, not if she wants to eat. And so she grinds her teeth and goes further and further into the desert as time passes, trekking in a world of vivid colours, the blue of the sky, the shifting shades of the sand.

 

On bad weeks, she feels insubstantial, light-headed and slow as she rummages the hidden stock in her hut, tries to repair things older than her to get better rations. She doesn’t dare hide much, be it finds or food or water, having no illusions of the sanctity of her hiding places. On good weeks, her stomach feels heavy and she steals time to explore old ruins full of mystery. No one but her comes to those places. Here she reigns supreme, in buildings long picked clean, the barebones of a history forgotten, scoured raw by the sand. On bad days, Lord Plutt himself looks at the salvage brought by scavengers, lines of dirty, stained cloth and broken backs that make her feel small and claustrophobic as she waits for her turn, the greedy eyes, the fear that this time, this time the salvage won’t be enough. On good days, she sits under the canopy of the caravanserai at Niima and listens to old myths of the desert and tales of the world outside the borders of Jakku as she sips strong sapir tea, the spicy taste a rare, precious treat.

 

Gossip features stories of wizardry, news of the sound of marching boots, drawing ever nearer, ever more present. The strange powers assigned to the bloodthirsty Bluebeard, first enforcer of the emperor, make her wonder. He is said, in hushed whispers, to have burned down the seat of his most noble House and Family with those powers. He is said, sometimes, to have done much worse, but the Empire has always had many ears and never took lightly to the slander of its elite, even, especially in places such as the Marches. Those rumours were forbidden under the Empire, and old habits are hard to break. The might of the Empire has never been a subject favoured by Lord Plutt either, and the Lord has shown he is not to be crossed. And so Rey listens to the unsaid, doesn’t interrupt and politely asks for stories of the sea, thinking of the day when her family will come back for her, of the wide world and not of what she could do with powers like those. When her family will come back, she will leave the Marches behind, Jakku nothing but a memory. She will have a real home.

 

In the ramshackle hut she built for herself, in the shadows of eroded ruins, pale as the bones of a dead giant, she retells herself those stories when the wind rises. It keeps her inside for days, with her scratched walls, tallies to mark the passing of each lonely day, in rows that only made the hut smaller and smaller as the count grew and spread from wall to wall with the passing of the years. Her only living company, in between those walls, is the half dead plant she keeps, suffering as much from the lack of water as Rey herself is.

 

She keeps little things here with her, small treasures stolen from the sand that wouldn’t interest Plutt. Coloured stones reflecting light and scraps of metal suspended together, tingling in the wind. A little doll she’s sewn years ago, a bright splash against the drab background of her life; nothing but little things that make her feel like she lives and doesn’t just survive. Little things that are hers, of too little value to bother hiding them, unlike food and precious water – unlike the collection of old helmets, cracked and useless, taken by Plutt’s men, because those were needed for soldiers, for rebels, to protect the land of Jakku, to protect people like her who live off the Lord’s generosity.

 

She can’t do much against so many armed men, so she holds her quarterstaff close, leaves all interesting finds to Plutt, and keeps on surviving every day and every trial the desert throws at her.

 

 

Until the day she finds a thing that’s not a thing. It’s a being, a spirit in a copper sphere, lost without its master. Its name is BB-8 and on its heels comes a boy who feels like a brother, gifted to her by the desert, not the family who left her, the family she’s still waiting for without really knowing why. She hides BB-8 from the greedy eyes of Lord Plutt, and later, with their help, buries the remains of the crashed carriage the boy named Finn arrived in. In another hole they put mangled remains, and she says the old words to keep the dead in the earth and the holes are filled up and no traces are left on the desert’s surface. Until the wind brings the truth of the day’s events, swallowed by the sand, to the light again. But that won’t happen for a long time.

They’re both so very strange, Finn and BB-8. They turn her life around, in so short a time. BB-8 rolls and rolls with nary a sound but that of his expressive beeping. He’s made up of complex copper parts, and she regularly cleans those, mindful of the sand gripping delicate mechanisms. Finn’s smile is bright, shiny with white teeth he shows often. His laugh resonates in the emptiness of the desert; a rich sound, bright and cheerful, so surprising at first. He’s full of questions, curious of everything, and she teaches him things. To keep him busy, to keep him safe. How to wear pale, flowing cloths to fight the heat, how to cover his head under the glare of the sun, how to steal moisture from the desert. She shows him how to climb the dunes, how to keep his footing in the traitorous sand. The marches are unforgiving to newcomers, but she knows secret paths and how to read the land and the wind, how to live in the wide empty landscape, under the blue of the sky. How to hide as if disappearing from thin air, and how to survive the cold the night brings.

 

Finn is a quick study, and two people can scavenge much more than one. She shows him all she knows. BB-8 is best used as a lookout. She knows he’s unhappy, misses his dead master. Finn is new at everything, and easier to distract, but BB-8 – she fears he will leave and she fears Finn will follow, and then she’ll be alone again. She doesn’t think she could bear it. She stopped scratching days once BB-8 and Finn arrived, lost count of the days spent waiting for the return of a family she doesn't really remember.

Still, she starts a new series of tallies, little cuts on the columns around her (their) shelter, for the number of days Finn and BB-8 are staying. She hopes this series will number more scratches than the first one. She fears it won’t.

 

 

 

 

She brings Finn and BB-8 to the oldest ruins in the desert, to her hiding spots and favourite places. She shows them Niima, the caravanserai and its customers, and has Finn taste the strong tea, listening to the tales of ancient crones burned by the sun, scoured as clean as the ruins in the desert by winds that have the canopy above their head crackling with sharp flapping sounds. Travellers speak second, always, so as to be left time to drink and eat and breathe in the shade. They bring news of battles with a heightening frequency, and a new kind of talk, of how things are on the other side of the battle lines, where the Empire reigns uncontested. The rebels are losing, she knows, as does the whole of Niima, its inhabitants looking at the men still occupying Unkar’s palace with eyes hungrier than ever, and now, a new kind of calculation.

 

She brings Finn and BB-8 on longer and longer hunts, further in the desert and back, following the battlefront’s ebb and flow. She’s used to it, the desolation, the thick clouds of smoke mounting from pyres a sure indication of rich pickings, the smell of death and the cawing sounds of carrion birds a trail easy to read. She sees Finn look at the faces of the men in white, sees him sigh sadly at the more ragtag rebels. He tells her stories of his life before Jakku when they work, and time passes faster. They weave full tales in the evening, filling the missing bits in the image of the world painted by the traders, imagination running wild. Finn knows many stories she’s never heard, and he asks complicated questions to which she doesn’t have answers. His thoughts are beautiful but alien to her, to the world she knows under the cruel sun, death and hunger waiting at the end of every day, her truest enemies.

 

Sometimes, he speaks of the magic called forth by Lord Ren, the Bluebeard, master of soulless knights and devil hounds, unleashed at the Emperor’s will, of all such creatures the most dangerous. She’s more curious than ever about these stories now – ever since the day she tries to forget. Since the fear, she’s been able to do things with her mind, and she’s too curious not to experiment. BB-8 hates it, whistling angrily, but Finn is awed whenever she manages something new. Sometimes she wakes thrashing from nightmares, and finds everything in the hut floating above the ground. There are no more dreams of far-away seas, unimaginable expanses of water and a smell she doesn’t have words to describe. Now there’s the echo of a scream clinging to her all day, the taste of fear is a faint memory, and the sight of blood on the clear sand of Jakku a vivid one. She tries to forget, to bury that day deep in her memory, as deep as she buried its traces under the sand.

 

The day she leaves Jakku is a nightmare day. She’s been jumping at shadows since she woke, startled by something dark, a choking feeling unknown to her yet. The hot air feels more suffocating than usual, and there’s a taste of wrongness in her mouth, like the smell of rot on the wind. It’s a normal morning in every way, she tells the bad feeling. She and Finn eat and drink and leave the hut. They’re walking atop the crest of a dune, BB-8 rolling carefully behind when it happens. They’d gone in a new direction, following the smell of fire and death on the wind, the crowing cries of carrion birds. A destroyed rebel camp, easy pickings now in Jakku. For Rey and her little family, an occasion for fresh finds, if they’re quick enough, before bigger scavengers arrive. Once, she found two whole canteens of water like that, and another time, years ago, strips of spicy dried meat she’d eaten immediately, the strangest thing she’s ever tasted. She’d hoped they would find some, describing the taste as well as she remembered to Finn while they walk, the sun bearing down on them when she sees a flash of light, a reflection on something somewhere, where –

 

It’s the sun, reflecting off a metallic surface, an instant of blindness, enough for the world to tilt. He comes with the Ren Hounds on his heels, monsters on four legs known to attach themselves onto two-legged ones. She’s heard, in the hushed tones those stories are told, that the beasts like blood as much as Bluebeard’s knights. She’s heard they’re better trackers, but it’s for their intelligence that their master keeps them. But she’s never heard of how their thick black fur drinks light, how silently they can move even on shifting sands. She’s surrounded, encircled by patient, watching eyes. She sees it in the way they look at her – they won’t jump if she doesn’t give them a reason to.

 

Swords drawn, monsters on two legs, knights in dark armour, are holding back Finn and BB-8. She doesn’t hear her family over the hammering of her heartbeat. She’s waiting, like the hounds are, for an opening, an occasion – a pretext to act, but how, what can she do to keep from seeing the blood of her family spilled in the thirsty sand of the desert –

 

Tall and slightly hunched, clenched fists, stomping, stalking gait. Wisps of blue hairs escaping a black hood, shadowed face under rough cloth. Dark armour, under a darker cape oozing shadows, its tattered ends sending sand flying. She can guess who the man approaching her is. No one would dare impersonate Bluebeard, Lord of Ren, first enforcer of the Emperor.

 

Under the hood, he looks young and pale. She can see hope in dark eyes, an unfettered wild beast she recognizes as an old companion of hers, and dark blue hairs when he uncovers his head, so near she can feel shadows lapping at her feet, her ankles. The man looks at her as one would a map – he’s searching for something, but she has nothing to give anyone, no answer to give those inquisitive eyes because she doesn’t even understand what he’s asking, she only feels the world waiting for her answer with baited breath, an electrical tension that she fears will explode as soon as she says anything, the pressure of power around them, heavy, stillness in the air, until he raises his hands, a dark metallic thing, to touch her cheek and suddenly she knows he felt power awakening in her that day and he’s been searching, oh, he’s been searching and she knows why he’s here and what he wants from her and from Finn and from BB-8 and what will happen if she refuses.

 

The day she leaves Jakku and its sun-beaten sand is the day she agrees to marry the Bluebeard, her small hand in a monster’s much bigger than hers as she climbs into a black carriage, with a retinue of monsters to escort her.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the art [liberlibelula](http://liberlibelula.tumblr.com) made for this chapter can be found [here](http://liberlibelula.deviantart.com/art/The-tent-in-the-desert-613811020)


	2. the forbidden tree

 

Rey isn’t just Rey anymore. She’s the noble Lady of Ren, the bride in refined dresses. The sister of a newly-made knight, one of the men who guard the emperor night and day hidden. The woman hidden in a monster’s lair. She’s been taken from the realm of everyday and things known, to be given free reign over a castle that engulfed her in darkness. Kept away from all but her husband and his knights, and Finn and BB-8 who visit occasionally, when their mission leaves them the possibility. Her brothers, who tell her of the rumours running wild at the Imperial Court – the mysterious lady, honoured wife of the Emperor’s favourite butcher. The tantalizing pale shape gossipers only glimpsed at her cursed husband’s side, the day she was wed, and whom they now weave stories about. Tales of a princess jealously kept by a monster on two legs that Finn tells her are spreading. Kylo Ren confirms it with a chilling smile, and retells the versions he’s heard when she asks. He’s the height of courtesy, this husband of hers, for all that he comes back home dripping blood, a murder for the rugs. He never stays long, between extended absences, deserting her for imperial affairs she cares little about, the armed fist of an Emperor she’s seen only once, the day of her wedding. An Emperor he keeps her away from, free to roam her own little kingdom. He is a lonely, dark and secretive thing, like the house she now lives in.

 

It’s more of a castle than a house, huge and rambling, its beauty terrible. It’s so old that she can feel the weight of time, almost palpable. Shadows crawl in corners, shadows without a source, like darkness clinging to the inside walls in foggy tendrils. Unsubstantial stains against the tapestries and wallpapers, bleeding over from the dark spaces under staircases.

 

As she goes she opens windows wide, so that light shines and salty breezes blow in the ancient rooms, so shadowy, so full of secrets waiting to be brought to the light of the day. Rusty hinges creak when she pushes open long unopened doors, scraps of memories hanging in the stale air of cavernous kitchens, cupboards overflowing, dusty wine racks and exotic spices, mysterious everyday objects she finds fascinating. An unimaginable number of footsteps left the grand staircase’s marble curved and polished, as if collapsing under the weight of its own history. Long corridors, flooded with light coming through tall arched windows, fighting the ever-present shadows, a convoluted dance under vaulted chambers and sculpted archways.

 

 

The house is nestled in green, parts of the outside walls covered in moss and climbing vines. Vegetation encroaches on the oldest parts of the building, a dark gem hidden in a forest in the middle of an island with abrupt, rocky shores and meandering sculpted stairs – hers to explore. She’s discovered new shades, variations of green and blue she never knew existed. She’s seen more water than she could ever imagine, water like she dreamed about her whole life, seas and lakes, and mist in the air. She learns to swim in the smallest of the island’s lakes; water is the loveliest of caresses, and she dreams of the day she’ll be ready to take on the vastness of the sea. The muffled sound of the tide’s ebb and flow is an inescapable background, a soothing murmur broken by the shrill cries of birds and the rustling of leaves.

 

She lets herself be swallowed by the woods, and she climbs trees, crosses singing streams, roams under greenish light, barefoot on mossy ground. The hem of her petticoat catches leaves and twigs as she wanders, tangles in the underbrush. Fragile lace and delicate embroidery rips on thorns, leaving behind scraps of fragile cloth, pearls and luminous stones, coloured threads borne away by gusts of wind. There are old ruins, sculpted stone eroded by time and broken by strong roots twisting themselves in the tiniest of cracks. In the older bits of the castle, grass grows in forgotten galleries opening on courtyards where the island’s wilderness encroaches. Under the treetops and the greenish light, she finds wildflowers and flat, coloured stones. They make jingling sounds in her pockets, the deep pockets she’s had added to impractical gowns, where she keeps the keys of the house. Her husband gave her the keys, even though no door in the castle is locked. _There’s no other set_ , he’d told her, leather-covered hands closing hers around the rusty iron keyring, stern eyes scrutinizing.

 

It was the first morning of her wedded life, and he’d added that he had only one thing to ask of her – not to enter his study. It seemed like a small thing after everything he’d promised her, one door among dozens. Only one room to avoid, when she has a kingdom to inspect, each room of the house a treasure trove, a new place for her to map, to make hers. Her sweeping gowns send motes flying in stale air, sounds muffled by thick tapestries and thicker rugs as she searches for old memories. She walks along rows of flickering lights, regularly spaced chandeliers, little islands of warmth in the pervasive darkness. Every door is an object of some vague symbolism, unreadable to her, hiding insidious whispers and stale secrets. Behind one, she finds a library filled with the strangest books, bookcases taller than her, precious woods and dull brass. The room smells of leather spines and old papers, yellowed by time. It smells like lightning too, the electric feeling of magic leaching out of the oldest books. Those are full of wonders, and devoid of the answers she seeks. They bring no understanding of the power flowing in her very own veins, burning like Kylo Ren’s eyes do under hooded lids, forever appraising, ever waiting.

 

Behind another door is her favourite drawing room, with the glazed vase full of ever-fresh wreaths of sophisticated flowers and simple ferns. The room at the entrance in which she sips strong desert tea with Finn during his rare visits with BB-8, sitting on cushions spread in the grass under the white awning, looking towards the greenhouse and the wildness of the grounds. They weave visions of the future soon to come, dreams more fragile than the lace of her dresses. Those dreams she keeps safely buried, as she knows Finn and BB-8 do, shining hopes based on her husband’s knowledge.

 

 

Once she couldn’t afford dreams; now she has more than she ever knew one person could have – she lives in what has to be luxury, surrounded by beautiful, useless things. Scattered in the house, in gilded wardrobes and cobwebbed corners, hidden behind heavy drapes and under majestic stairways, are clues to the man she married, puzzle pieces scattered, dormant in ornate chests and deep drawers, treasures long forgotten and ghostly memories. The castle sighs under the weight of its secrets; it shows her forgotten ways in the maze of rooms, and this makes her certain it likes her. Shadows running along the wallpapers, flickering lights and glowing tendrils of old magic lead her along paths taken by long-dead inhabitants. She tracks the ghosts of footsteps deep in the house, and back out the gardens. Fierce insatiable curiosity driving her steps, fingers twitching every time something catches her eye, she gathers dust motes in the fragile lace of her dresses. Layers of flowing cloth catches on splinters with the softest of ripping sounds, collecting stains in the half wild gardens as she leaves careless trails behind her. There traces of her bare feet in the dustier rooms, mud from the grounds she brings back in the house; piles of the things that took her fancy, finds that she can leave and come back to whenever she wants, knowing they won’t have moved.

 

Kylo Ren doesn’t care if things disappear and reappear in Rey’s rooms – her very own rooms, tucked in a corner of the ancestral castle. Her rooms with the huge windows, where she sleeps in comfort and security, surrounded by the things she scavenges during her days, the bits of her past she’s chosen to keep. She keeps a ring in her rooms, a ring she doesn’t wear, dark and heavy, claws waiting to encircle her finger. It looks just like her husband’s, but his is bigger, and white where hers is black. The metal is cold, colder than his fingers on her cheek when he touches her, spiderweb caresses breaking the rhythm of her breathing. The ring is hidden, not in the jewellery box already full of glinting stars, but under the thick mattress of her bed.

 

Her bedroom opens on the garden, dotted with statues she can glimpse at night, pale under the moonlight. A path leads to the greenhouse, and behind, a view to the misty forest and a lake. The greenhouse is full of dark flowers and heady scents, a hint of corruption wafting in humid air, interwoven with dark whispers of things past and things to come. The whispers call to her more and more. Sometimes the hounds follow her during her walks. She doesn’t know how many there are, running free in the island. Too rarely, one comes near enough that she can count the many eyes, pet soft fur and whisper endearments. She tries to project friendliness, hoping it will bring them to her. She never searches for them. She always backs away if she finds them eating.

 

She's seen them tear people in pieces, those rebels who sometimes make it to the property, as if they thought entering it meant they’d get out. Kylo Ren tells her they want to save her, the poor child married to a monster, the princess in her tower, the lady of pains, a martyr and a banner to rally behind. She doesn't understand that - she doesn't know any rebels. No one ever came for her before Kylo Ren took her away from Jakku to keep her here, when she was nothing but a desert rat.

 

 

Statues needle her, asking if she remembers what she did, if she liked it. They bring back memories of the dark shade of blood-soaked sand, the fear and hate coursing through her when huge hands grabbed at her, the sharp stake of panic, and her surrender.

 

The flowers in the greenhouse sigh only in the twilight hours, telling her of her husband, of how he misses the smell of her skin, the feel of her, his fingers in her hair. They mutter secrets and she never answers, but stays up late to listen to those, only going back to the house at dawn. Always, she is careful not to disturb the morning dew, as delicate as the lace of the wedding veil she keeps in her rooms, delicate drops to surround her as she dreams in crystal sleep, infinite, countless nights, endless nights.

 

 

 

As frequent as his absences are, her husband always comes back here, bringing with him a flash of the outside world, the smell of burning flesh, the echo of clanging metal and death rattles. The castle almost forgets her, so busy it is welcoming its master, awaiting with baited breath, delighted to have him back in its halls – his shadowy cape sweeping the stone floors, possessive hands running along the walls in a parody of affection.

 

Kylo Ren is at home here, the center towards which everything gravitates – he blends with the shadows at the corner of her vision, bringing more darkness with him every time he strides into a room. The frayed hem of his dark cape trails shadows, fists clenched at his side, tension in the line of his shoulders, his back hunched, leaning towards her always. She doesn’t know what to make of him, of his silences, of the way he watches her intently. Her husband is a mystery wrapped in shadows; the riddle of his being will gnaw at her if she lets it. He doesn’t ask much of her, and leaves her free to roam even when present, only asking her company for dinner.

 

But when her husband is home, he asks, every day during those dinners they share, the same question, _did you find anything interesting today?_ They eat in a big stately room, and after the first time, there has never been more cutlery than she thinks is needed at the table. The tablecloth is always fantastically white, floor length. She’s gotten into the habit of hiding her most interesting find of the day under the table, so she can better show it off. He never disapproves, but she feels he’s waiting for her to find something, a special thing. She’s found many special things in the house, ribbons and children’s toys forgotten in dusty corners, bones left to rot in the greenhouse, feeding the flowers and their whispers.

 

 

The toys weren’t his, he says after a cursory glance. Long fingers skim over the ribbons, and he tells her those were his mother’s. The little sculpted pieces are dejarik pawns, she learns, and the next day he brings her a board and starts teaching her. _Trickster_ , he calls her when she wins for the first time, delighted and proud, looking at him, deep-set eyes on the board, unreadable to her still but approving of her sleight of hand.

 

 

She doesn't scratch days anywhere, in the castle. She doesn't think she will ever really leave this place behind. She doesn't think it will let her. She doesn't keep track of her husband's absences, because he always comes back and it would be like writing how she misses him on the walls. She doesn't keep track of the number of days he spends here either, because the count always feels too low.

 

Even then, she feels as if he were always there. It’s a diffuse fog haunting her steps, the way shadows grow in the corner of her vision. It’s the cloying smell of decaying leaves and flowers down by the pond in her garden, the hounds running free on the property ground’s. The flowers whisper to her, tell her of the man far away who’s seen a universe in her eyes, the man who thinks of her in the feverish heat of battle and the dead of the night.

 

 

He starts giving her presents, precious things he brings back with him, sometimes still smelling faintly of smoke and copper, flat coloured little stones he leaves on her bedside table for her collection, among wreaths of flowers. He hands her letters from Finn – Finn who’s away on the mission her husband gave him. Kylo Ren lets her do her reading alone. Finn never speaks of his mission in the letters. His words are happy but she can feel worry etched under the letters, a muted kind of fear.

 

In the latest one, she finds a joke – _I should soon be promoted by your husband_ , again, Finn has written. And so she knows her time of hiding is touching to an end. She’s investigated every nook and cranny of the castle by now. She doesn’t feel like she’s found the true secret of the castle, though. Outside, flowers and statues offer no hint, taunting her instead.

 

 

It’s rain that drives her back in the house, where the pitter-patter sound of raindrops, so alien at first, surrounds her as she wanders the old corridors aimlessly, none of the already opened doors tempting to her. All but one – it’s just a study, and she’s only seen her husband go inside once, when he came back to her covered in his own blood, after days of worrying silence from the flowers and the statues. 

 

The forbidden door looks like any other – even her rooms’ doors are more ornate. It’s the only room unexplored, the only clues to her husband left in the island waiting for her, nothing to protect them from her prying hands but a door with no keyhole. There’s no magic here, nothing but ancient wood and the burning need to know what is in there.

 

 A deep breath and it opens without a sound, unsteady hands and her frantic heartbeat as she lingers on the threshold. The room looks empty and she finds her breathing again. It’s very dark, but there are only paintings – above the mantelpiece, a man and a woman and a child and a Wookie, huddled together. On the walls, three children with bright smiles. A bearded man with twinkling eyes. The windows wide open, gusts of wind bringing rain inside, a chill. The child in the family portrait has to be her husband, she thinks. She’s never seen him look this happy. He’s usually grave. Stone like. Nothing like this child, with the hands of people who have to be his parents on his shoulders, a perfect tableau of familial happiness.

 

There’s a metallic cylinder on a mantelpiece, its glint drawing her eye.

 

She’s seen this kind of artefact in books in the library, lavishly pictured on pages, details lovingly rendered. Entering the room and touching it doesn’t seem so daring. Her heartbeat makes more noise than the fall of her steps. The floor is wet, her slippers and the hem of her dress soaked in no time, an unpleasant feel against her skin.  The object is cool under her hand and she falls off an unseen precipice’s edge into darkness, gown billowing around her and ---

 

 

\--- she’s somewhere else, loud noises, it’s dark and it rains and she smells smoke – a gurgling cry, she turns – her husband, younger, so much younger, flaming sword illuminating his tearful face, grinding teeth, the Wookie’s sternum where it enters. Her hands go to her mouth as the man she will marry screams, a pained, ragged sound, and tears his sword away, leaving a tall silhouette to fall slowly, a great felled tree, as he stalks away, eaten by a roaring cloud of smoke and she blinks --- darkness again, she’s inside a room, a child huddled in a corner, two older looking ones holding the same flaming swords as her husband, power ebbing and flowing around them, and she knows, she knows no one but her and Kylo Ren hold this power in their veins and a crashing noise behind her, the door, she realizes as the children’s panic mounts, and the stomping noise she recognizes, her husband’s footsteps, the fizzling sound of his sword and she closes her eyes, nauseous --- bright light behind her eyelids has her opening them to a rocky shore, bird cries and again, behind her, the sizzling sound of her husband’s weapon starts again, and she shudders to think of what she will see if she turns, but she does, she does, and finds him still so very young, bleeding already, facing an older man hidden by a hooded cloak. There’s no other sound than that of the swords, a low buzz, grating, resonating – and the bird cries, far above, nothing to announce the sudden eruption of violence, white noise every time the swords clash, and her husband is losing ground fast until and she gasps despite herself, and the old man looks at her, and she sees hope in his eyes, a sudden, fleeting connexion, cut short when a spin of her husband’s sword connects and surprise floods the three of them --- light again, blinding, and it takes her a while to adapt her vision, to realize the metallic noises she hears are screams, and when she turns this time it’s to see the man from the portraits on the walls of the study laying on the ground, bloody and so very dead and the dark shape is her husband and the white thing he’s rocking in his lap, she’s dead too and he’s the one crying, screaming agony, he’s shaking, getting blurry behind her tears ---

 

 

Outside, lightning strikes, startling her away from the images. She sees the ground is wet with red stains, bloody water lapping at her feet.

 

The cylinder – it’s a weapon, she knows that now – falls from her hand and clatters on the ground. She thinks of putting it back, heart hammering. She turns – and here he is, looking at her. Shrouded in shadows, and not really there, she realizes. He’s in her mind. He knows. He’s seen everything.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the art [liberlibelula](http://liberlibelula.tumblr.com) made for this chapter can be found [here](http://liberlibelula.deviantart.com/art/The-whispers-in-the-greenhouse-616746848)


	3. knowledge

 

Rey’s rooms look like a cross between a magpie’s nest and a cocoon. It’s her favourite place in the whole house, on the whole island. Empty and cold when she arrived, she’s since filled them with the things she loves best, with no regard for tasteful arrangements or overall theme. She dragged heavy furniture and tapestries inside, pilfered guest rooms for furs and blankets and quilts, marvellously soft fabrics to burrow into.

 

Her treasures are everywhere, trinkets displayed on most surfaces, hidden in lacquered boxes and cupboards, a fantastical array of colours and textures, plain oak and ornately carved gnarltree. Flowers and ferns in numerous vases, scattered on every free surface, hanging by armfuls from the ceiling. Inlaid gold leaf and starlight stones. Antique copper candelabras, shining in corners like warmth in the darkness. A wardrobe overflowing with fine linen and gauze and muslin, thick velvet and raw silk, lace filigree more delicate than cobwebs, pearls sewn like scattered dew, a collection of floss and clouds, overcast days and brewing storms. Against the wall, near the door, is her old quarterstaff. Finn’s letters are in the drawer of her bedside table, kept with an old glove of her husband’s, the black leather worn and smooth. His new pair doesn’t feel nearly as soft yet.

 

 

She changes her gown and slippers, but the stains follow her whatever she puts on, a mark she can’t get rid of. She settles for black – but still finding the edge of the stains in the dark fabric is distressing. She closes the drapes, more darkness to hide the stains. She lights every lamp, and the scented candles she’d found inside an all but destroyed room, among shards from a mirror whose ornate iron frame had melted. They smell just like the alderaanian lilies in the greenhouse, familiar and soothing. She lights a fire in the fireplace, a warm glow to ward off the chill, popping noises merging with the rhythm of the rain falling outside.

 

She leaves the windows open behind their heavy drapes, and the electric feeling in the atmosphere is brimming in her bedroom, resonating deep in her bones. Time moves slowly as she paces, and she feels impatient, her skin too small for her, panicked heartbeat like a caged bird, something wild rattling in its cage in rhythm with the storm outside. Waiting is torture, anticipation agony. She tries not to think, to keep her mind empty, but the thought of her husband returning consumes her, ghosts gnawing at her unravelling thoughts, a thousand little needles prickling her skin.

 

 

Her husband won’t be long, of that she’s sure. She’s certain he felt her vision, the world tilting, just as she did. He knows. She hopes he did - even if he hadn’t, the stains would give her away as soon as he’d see her. Better for the wait to be cut short, for him to come to her in all haste, knowing her transgression already. And so she waits for him, wonders how he will kill her. Oh, he will be unhappy about it, this she knows, he will, he will.

 

 

She stops pacing when the feel of cold wet blood on the hem of her dress, sticking to her ankles, becomes too unsupportable. She still feels it under the soles of her feet, sitting in the straight backed chair he’s had brought here, because she usually only likes the deep cushioned ones. To keep her mind occupied, she sews, something she hates and that takes all of her concentration. She’s been training on ripped dresses, trying to put them back together, hopeless at copying the small regular stitches however hard she tries. She jabs her finger on the needle, ruby drops falling on the white dress in her lap, greedily absorbed by layers of thin muslin. Another stain on her hands.

 

 

He’ll use his hands, she thinks, looking at her marriage ring. Her bedsheets are still askew from her rummaging around to find it under the mattress. She can’t remember why she hid it. Trying to forget her marriage, maybe. Did she really think the ring ugly? It’s still heavy, still a stark stain on her hand, but not as cold as she remembered, the claws less constricting. In the obscurity of her bedroom, it looks like a hand, long fingers, sharp and possessive. Her husband’s fingers will look like that around her neck. His own ring will feel cold against her fevered skin, and it will leave a deeper imprint when he throttles her. How long will it take, how much will it hurt, she wonders.

 

 

The sound of steps announces him. A short silence, her stomach clenching, and the door of her bedroom opens with its usual rusty, dragging sound. Her husband is a dark shape against the backdrop of the warmly lit corridor behind him, tall and menacing under plates of armour. He brings puddles of rain with him.

 

She rises from her chair, a greeting on her lips, the usual shameful tinge of awe and envy coursing through her as he closes the door with a raised hand and a burst of power, a tingling sensation against her skin, like ripples in water. The last time she tried she reduced the door to splinters, the power a sweet, heady song flowing in her veins, frustration unleashing a storm in her bones. The dress she’d balled up in her fists is left behind, golden and ghostly under the candlelight as she crosses the room, imagining wet feet leaving bloody imprints in the thick carpet, erasing older phantom stains.

 

Under the helmet, his voice is distorted, an ominous metallic resonance, a rattle that resonates deep in her bones, drowning out quicksilver panic. _Wife_ , he says. Not her name. But she doesn’t call him by his name either, in her head or aloud – almost never.

 

She doesn’t want to break habits tonight, and doesn’t answer him. Her hands are sure when she reaches up to take off the helmet. It may be the last time she sees the face underneath, the last occasion to touch the freckles dusted along the line of his jaw, half hidden under his beard. It’s anticipation, not fear, that sets her blood alight, she realizes, always surprised by how light the helmet is as she lifts it off. It doesn’t make much sound when it falls, her hands going to the bevor next. The buckles are tricky, and she has to be cautious not to pinch skin under his jaw as she takes if off. Usually she’d put every piece down carefully, on a table she keeps free of any clutter, and have them inspected for new scuff marks and bumps in the thinnest plates, articulations and straps checked, rust scraped away. She can’t be bothered, just this once. It’s a comforting ritual.

 

He couldn’t be more vulnerable than when she does this, slowly peeling off the armoured layers of the monster to find the man under. Here, in the warm silence of her rooms, hidden from the rest of the world and its dangers.

 

She lets the bevor fall, glimpses the hollow at the base of her husband’s neck, a quickening pulse of life under pale skin, hidden behind the beard again in seconds. A hand, hidden by a dark gauntlet still, rising to tip up her chin, careful and slow. Candlelight casts stark shadows on his serious face. Cold metal trails on her cheek, tucking escaped hairs behind her ear. She thinks of the flowers and the things they whisper. She thinks of how easy it will be for her husband to crush her neck, familiar touch turning in a deadly grip. His eyes are dark, and her breath catches, a tiny hitch. _I was waiting_ , he says, finally breaking the silence, _for you to enter the room. What interesting thing did you find today_?

 

As if he hasn’t just made the word reel again, he withdraws his hand, offering the gauntlet for her to unclasp, then the other. She knows how bloody they are, those hands she loves so. Every little scar, every bump and callus is known to her, veins and tendons mapping paths she’s explored, roads she’s followed in the darkness of her rooms. His hands know her too; he’s brought out universes in her, awakened a light that will not die. Now, she knows all they have done, all they can still do. But she knew him already, she thinks. She knew what lies behind all he does.

 

And the door – the door wasn’t a test but an invitation. It was a lure, this forbidden place, a trap, exquisitely simple. Behind the door was a story for her to steal, left for her to take in greedy hands. An altar to desecrate, the deepest secret of her husband, the key to his being.

 

 _I found a boy lost in darkness_ , she says. _A key_.

 

The key she’d so wanted, the true depths of his darkness. Now she knows – she knows how far he went to win the trust of a monster. He has no secrets left. But still she has her own. It’s only just she gives a story in return – a secret, a key. He will not kill her, and she cannot choose the dreams of unknowing anymore; deft fingers at work on the last buckles and clasps, layers and layers falling around them, she weaves a vision with words.

 

 

There’s Lord Unkar Plutt and his greedy eyes and how he made her spine crawl. The first time the Lord of Jakku tried to take BB-8 away, BB-8 she’d just saved… An offer for money and peace of mind made to her for the spirit in his copper sphere. A living being, a person, not a thing. Her refusal and even her shame at almost saying yes. The thugs shadowing her footsteps the following days. Finn’s sudden arrival, tensions rising and the poisonous taste of fear, for herself, for BB-8, for Finn, and the way it built with each passing day…

 

The day Plutt came to her hut. Knights and Rebels surrounding the house. She remembers the heavy silence, stillness waiting to be broken, and then a flurry of movement; BB-8 snatched from her arms, the sound of his anguished cries and her panicked heartbeat, Finn held down by thugs, the true nightmare of her childhood advancing towards her, Lord Plutt and his hungry eyes –

 

 _And you ripped the worm to pieces, I know_ , Kylo says, tearing her from the memory of a scream and the ugly sound of flesh torn asunder, unnatural and wet – silence again, only broken by the soft noise of falling droplets, a rain of warm, bright red, the heavy smell of copper –

 

 

Of course he knew. She remembers that last day on Jakku. He’d read her mind; he’d told her he’d felt her powers awakening, but never had she imagined he knew so much. He’d told her she was what he’d been searching for. The future of an Empire, he’d said, asking her to come with him without words. She remembers her wedding day, the wrongness that was the Emperor. He’d looked at her, and she’d known, she’d known her husband and Finn were right. She’d known the ancient thing had to be removed. Killed. She’d understood, that day, why his mission was so important. Why he was hiding her and the power at her fingertips.

 

 _Thank you, my lady_ , he says, eyes still on her, _for trusting me with such a gift – as it happens, I have one in return_.

 

He bows to her, ceremonial, the phantom sound of shadows moving with him an anchor. Her world is reeling – again. She almost misses the way his smile grows, crooked, his hands raising something immaterial, the smallest hint of a glow. A constellation of diffuse stars he sets on her head. It’s strangely heavy, this invisible crown, the latest and most precious of her husband's presents, the surrendering of an empire into her hands.

 

Her world narrows to the tip of his fingers grazing her cheek, as he bends down, eyes like burning coal in the dim light. He looks sadder than he should in this moment of triumph.

 

 _Rey_ , he asks, her name a prayer on his lips; _do you want to leave, now? Finn – your brother, and BB-8 will be here soon. The world holds no more danger for you_. His eyes are still dark and unreadable.

 

 _No_ , she says. Her voice sounds strangled, far away. _I’m not leaving._ Never. How could she? Here she is, her true self naked, laid out before him, reborn and whole. She knows, she finally knows how deeply she loves him, this man who just gave her the world. Hands shaking with the truth of it, she lets her fingers run along his jaw, she finds the freckles dusted there.

 

 _As you wish, my lady_ , he answers, bending towards her, a hint of a smile appearing, and finally, finally, here he is, the boy who threw himself in the dark, the man under the layers.

 

 _Kylo_ , she whispers – the name she’s avoided. _My love_. The words she’s never said.

 

 _Welcome home. I missed you_.

 

 

 

 _There is a tale told in the furthest reaches of the empire - once upon a time, the story ends, a long time ago, when the empire was young, and far, far away, the dark shadow they still call Bluebeard, the Lord of Ren, made an Empress of the orphan girl named Rey, so that a bright star replaced the darkest of all shadows._  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the art [liberlibelula](http://liberlibelula.tumblr.com) made for this chapter can be found here  
> [here](http://liberlibelula.deviantart.com/art/The-man-in-the-armor-620147707)  
> and [here](http://liberlibelula.deviantart.com/art/Reylo-Bluebeard-611130160)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so all my thanks to:  
> [liberlibelula](http://liberlibelula.tumblr.com) for the gorgeous illustrations i can't thank her enough for and because without her the story wouldn't be it what it is  
> [rachel-greatest](http://rachel-greatest.tumblr.com) for being the most wonderful of betas
> 
> this has been an adventure. an exercise in style and subversion and structure and overthinking everything.
> 
> *
> 
> my [tumblr askbox](http://and-then-bam-cassiopeia.tumblr.com/ask) is always open if you want to be sure i'll react to your comments/questions/something.


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